Dimensions: 51 x 36 cm
Signed and dated in composition: 'Kas 94'
Literature
1st ed. by Lombard, 1995
2nd ed. by Egmont (in "Great Expeditions")
Biography
Zbigniew Kasprzak, who works under the pseudonym KAS, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. During his studies he painted paintings and portraits, which were exhibited in many Warsaw and Krakow galleries. He began his contact with comics by winning a contest organized by "Relax" magazine. In 1979 he was awarded the Golden Pin at the Trinnale of Satire in Lodz. After graduation, he started working with the Cracow sports weekly Tempo, where he worked as a satirist. In Poland, he mainly created science-fiction and historical comics, which were published by the Sport and Tourism publishing house. He also wrote drawings for short comics treating famous travelers, included in anthologies published by the National Publishing Agency in the 1980s.
In 1988 Zbigniew Kasprzak was invited along with other Polish cartoonists (including Tadeusz Baranowski, Boguslaw Polch, Jerzy Skarzynski) to the comics festival in Sierre, where they participated in an exhibition of Polish comics. There, Grzegorz Rosiński offered Kasprzak to take over the Yans series. The series was created from 1980 by screenwriter Andre-Paul Duchateau and as a cartoonist Grzegorz Rosiński (albums 1-5), in 1990 Kasprzak drew the fifth album together with Rosiński, and in 1992 he took over the entire series from him - creating the last six albums.
He is the author of many posters and theater programs, book covers and illustrations. He pursued his interest in history by collaborating with the monthly historical magazine Arsenal of Poland, where his illustrations, short comic forms on historical topics and a series of watercolors devoted to the history of uniforms were published. He also did graphic design for War Games, painting reconstructions of major battles. He also collaborated with Fantastyka monthly, drawing for it several-page comics since fiction.
For his series - Travelers - he received the audience award at the BD Festival in Koksijd in 1995. For his 7-volume series Halloween Blues, created between 2003 and 2009, he was honored with the Chambre des Eksperts en BD (Chamber of Comics Experts) award. He permanently lives and works in Belgium.
